Mortality SUCKS!

Music: Crazy:Patsy Cline
Thoughts: The biggest loss....

I lost my best friend yesterday, and I still am in a state of shock as I write this.
Randy Lee Prinslow was actually more than a friend to me. He was my inspiring force, my co-creator and my evil twin. And he was my brother, not in blood but in mind and creativity.
Randy was the creator of Psychic Stripper,co-creator of our bizarre character(s) The Basher Boys From East Berlin, my best writer for my book HMM?('Twas HE responsible for the Batman article...not Kane!) and never got a chance to finish his own books The Shadowfool and Killer Kat. Randy never really pursued the same self publishing avenues that I did. He was always the individual creator, concentrating on his art and never really developing a plan for it.
Up until a couple of years ago he was involved in the SCA, the Society for Creative Anachronisms that I liked to call the Semi Conscious Adventurers , a group dedicated to the preservation of living in medieval times. I would always make fun of the group but appreciated Randy's dedication to the House Daos(one of the branches of the SCA). he took me to many a great party and many a lame one put on by these people. I was never really into the group, and maybe that's why Randy hung out with them less and less.

I talked to Randy a few weeks ago, and the last couple of times we spoke he mentioned his health only in passing, said he had trouble with his liver and that he was on medication so I figured he had it under control and I didn't worry too much. We were scheduled to share a table at the Stumptown show October 1st, and again I mocked him as I always did because here I was frantically getting ready to have a full table of t-shirts,comics, zines and other stuff and when I asked Randy what he is placing on HIS table (I got us a table and a half...Randy got the half), all he said was a few prints and a mailing list. I was to stay at Randy's the night before and then we would go to the show together. The last time I tried to stay the night at Randy's his sister passed away from cancer...so he did it to me again. That was the sign of TRUE friendship, I would diss him and he would diss me...and we both knew it was all in fun, so no one got hurt. We both respected each other's creativity and talent so we worked well together. The best example of this is from HMM? #1. Randy wrote a fake ad where you could own your own dead celebrity, and since he was a HUGE pop culture junkie (moreso than me...Randy could tell you ANYTHING you wanted to know when it came to just about anything...he loved pop culture!), he picked one of his idols Jack Lord. He gave me the text and I turned it into a franklin mint type ad and the result was beautiful....twisted, but beautiful. That's how we worked so well, we definitely played off each other.

Luckily I have alot of the Prinslow artwork in my possession and once I fix my computer (it's not reading some discs), I'll be putting out a tribute book or prints for my pal. He deserved alot more exposure than he got, but luckily I was fortunate to get stuff from him for HMM?, both Altered Fates Yearbooks and Sgt. Roadkil's Fanboy Journal. I'm keeping Randy's table for Stumptown and in honor, I'll try and print up some of his pieces and of course, there will be a mailing list.

Randy's liver gave out Wednesday evening I guess. Luckily through the internet I was able to get a number for his sister, his closest relative and she gave me the lowdown. Apparently Randy WAS sicker than he let on, he had been hospitalized 2 or 3 times, once with internal bleeding that took the doctors 24 hours to stop. But as he was getting weaker, he was still the same old Randy, always joking and making people laugh right up to the end. Apparently somewhere along the way he also caught HIV, which was almost as much as a shock to me as his death, because we always kidded Randy about not having a girlfriend or trying to break up with any that he DID have. True, he was a cad, but never really did much with the ladies...only having the occasional "con fling" here and there. Somewhere though, it caught up with him and may have contributed to his demise.

I'm still not believing it, but reality has to set in and I must carry on. It's so damned hard to lose someone and right now I can barely see the keys in front of me I'm crying so hard....guess I needed that though...gotta clean out the ducts. The Show Must Go On....this one's for you Randy, 'cause I KNOW you're getting a kick out of this somewhere...you bastard! (oh, and don't worry...that's my pet name for him...and he knows it).




F

The Eye of Katrina Weeps Not.....

Music: Unforgettable: Nat King Cole
Thoughts: The horror, going it alone(?) A Brighter tomorrow

When it hit, I wasn't aware of just how powerful Katrina was, after all, the South is a great ways away from the Oregon Coast and it IS after all hurricane season....just another drop of rain right? Wrong. even if I TRIED to ignore this one, I couldn't get away from it. It's as if suddenly, the world was thrown into an apocalyptic spin, with anarchy and barbarism taking hold of society. Welcome to New Orleans just after Katrina hit. The images and stories were horrifying, tales of guns, rapes, bodies floating everywhere and other atrocities. No, I can't ignore it....it CAN happen to ANYONE, Black, White, Hispanic, Male Female, adult, child.....Mother Nature is a cruel matriarch and can put us in our place REAL fast.

I've been deeply affected by this tragedy...more so than any other....is it because I live with the ocean less than 50 feet from my door? Perhaps, or maybe it's the effect that it has had on how we are acting as a country in general. I could go on a GREAT Bush rant right now, but I think Michael Moore summed it all up pretty well in HIS online blog http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2005-09-02
So I'll try not to go there. I think that's it though, basically this is proof positive that WE ARE SCREWED! We will never return to the carefree days of the past that alot of us once knew. We can only look forward to the TOTAL breakdown of civilization. It's not a time to point fingers, nor is it a time for photo ops and press conferences....it is a time to DO SOMETHING! And although my resources are insignificant in relation to corporations that have the ability to make a dent, I feel I at least have to make a scratch, so here's my plan:

PROJECT HUMANITY: I proposed to the SPA the idea of producing a book to benefit the victims of the hurricane, thinking that everyone would gladly jump on board and give it their all. I guess I was wrong, because it seems they are more pre-occupied with creating an SPA calendar or Christmas cards. I don't hold this against them at all...in fact Ian himself opened it up to creating a special issue of MVA (Mysterious Visions Anthology) as a pinup book with proceeds going to the relief effort. I hope it comes to light....but it's not exactly what I had in mind.
My project is a bit darker, combining poetry and thoughts with spot illustrations. I don't necessarily want small press characters in happy pinups.....I want art, and by art I mean I want something that comes from deep within the artist, something that they wouldn't normally be able to pull from themselves if they were just working on a pinup book. So with that, I'm starting work on what I call Project Humanity, a book which I hope to get printed and distributed with proceeds going to the American Red Cross. I have no deadline yet, nor do I have any contributors other than myself as of yet. I hope to make the BIG announcement once I figure this whole thing out and call on all my small press buds to help however they can. This is gonna be the most important book AFE puts together, no egos, no cartoons, just the feelings of the creative community. I'll be posting more on this as it comes together.

Crud visited one more time before he took off for Bend, we had a good time trying to burn CD's. I say try because he brought over about 50 CD's but my 'puter only got about 2 or three of them. Had a good chat about the old days and all the other losers I used to work with. One of them went to jail for rape and sodomy and is now free in Florida somewhere and the other is a God fearing Christian..... funny how that works......have I changed? I don't think so.....but then again, neither has Crud.

The Fletch showed up the other night, have I mentioned the Fletch yet? He's one of my old small press partners in crime, in fact he's pretty much responsible for getting me into this mess I call small press. The thing about Fletch is he's not overly talented but what he lacks in talent he more than makes up in enthusiasm. We are currently developing a new project together in the vein of Mondo Flod. It's a paranormal 'zine called FortFiles (Fletch did about 20 issues previously under his Stargate Publications banner in the 90's). I'm just gonna be typing, editing and putting the issues together for Fletch, and hopefully he'll be giving me enough material to fill them....we'll see how it goes, the first issue will be about sea monsters and such. We also had a great time, don't think I ever laughed as hard as I do with the Fletch. We went through a bunch of REALLY bad small press APA zines and made fun of the art and lame jokes.....hey, I can do that once in awhile...most of the time I'm totally encouraging to those who create...but there's those times that you just can't help yourself...plus those people aren't around to defend themselves and hopefully aren't even working in the field nowadays....I hope.

Anyway.....Pizza for all and take it with a grain,

'Til Then,

F